The present invention generally relates to baseball pitching machines. More specifically, the present invention relates to pitching machines for simulating a soft toss pitch from a coach.
There are many pitching machines on the market. Most of the pitching machines are designed to simulate a pitcher delivering a pitch from a pitcher”s mound to a live hitter at Home Plate. Soft toss pitches are commonly used as a baseball hitting drill to improve a hitter's hand/eye coordination, timing, and bat speed. This drill is used by coaches and players from Little League on up to the Major Leagues. Normally, a coach kneels to the side of the hitter, just outside the strike zone, and underhand-tosses a ball into the strike zone where the hitter hits it. There are a few Soft-Toss devices on the market, however they lack certain features to simulate a coach tossing the baseball. For example, one device may toss a ball into the air, but the machine is designed to use light-weight balls, as a toy and does not use real baseballs. Another machine may toss baseballs, but the ball height or angle cannot be adjusted. In addition, most of these machines use battery or electrical power to run motors, which are timed. They toss a ball every five or six seconds, which does not allow for a pause for instruction unless the machine is turned off. With a timed, motorized machine, the hitter or coach must turn off the machine each time to talk. Last, most coaches will tell a hitter to shift his weight back before the swing. Current machines have no provisions to correct or improve this skill. What is needed is a soft toss pitching machine which is user friendly and provides the same flexibility as having a coach toss the baseball.
It is an object of the present invention to provide soft toss pitching machine which is user friendly and provides the same flexibility as having a coach toss the baseball.